Problems of Maykop Culture in the Context of Caucasian-Anatolian Relations

Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze Proceedings of the International Archaeological Symposium Problems of Maykop Culture in the Context of Caucasian-Anatolian Relations Tbilisi The Circassian (Adyghian) Cultural Center Publishing House “Meridiani” 2013 ISBN 978-9941-10-748-1 1 Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze The relationship between the Caucasus and the Middle East during the “pre-Kura-Araxes” period [p. 192] The problem of chronological correlation of archaeological materials of the Caucasus and the Near East has a crucial value in the development of a common framework of Caucasian chronological system. To establish the absolute age of Caucasian cultures, it is necessary to take into account the dates received for the archaeological material of the Near East considered similar to the Caucasian materials. It goes without saying that in the Near East there is a high probability of getting more precise absolute dates, e.g., by means of correlation of the stratigraphy of multilayered settlements with the data of historical chronologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The determination of the links between the cultural and social developments of the Caucasus and distinct regions of the Near East within the Uruk cultural context (i.e. eastern Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and western Iran), is one of the most important aims for the archaeologists working on problems of archaeology of the northern periphery of Near East and basing themselves on recent researches in the Caucasus of the 4th millennium B.C. New indications on the overlapping in time of the Kura-Araxes and Uruk cultures, which have been revealed in last years with much more intensity than earlier, poses not only the problem of relation between these cultures but gives possibility to reconsider the character of cultural and social developments between the highly civilized societies of the core area of the Near East and its northern periphery and the regions located beyond of the latter. South Mesopotamian merchants of the late period of the Middle Uruk and Late Uruk, hungry for semi-precious stones, timber and metal ores, established a whole range of trading-outposts along the routes going to the mountains of Zagros and Taurus and the Caucasus. Basing themselves on G. Algaze’s theory, about the underdevelopment of northern societies and the dominance of southern city-states who obtain desired goods from the periphery through a kind of economic colonial system (Algaze 1993passim), whole range of archaeological publications appeared about the so-called Late Uruk expansion, most of which were linked with the supposed unbalanced relations between a main centre (southern Mesopotamia with its growing cities and administration) and a less developed [p. 193] periphery (Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia), colonisation, search for land, escape from pressure, search for raw materials, etc. (cf. Lyonnet 2010: 358). Though the culture of Uruk (or Uruk civilization) was distributed over a wide area from the Levant to Central Iran by local traders and colonists, causing the emergence of new colonies with local economies, the problem of its origin is controvercial. The researchers initially tied it to the migration of the newsettlers from the west, from Anatolia and even beyond (cf. Hutchinson 1935, 211-222). We should also take into account that by the old, traditional view-point expressed by A. J. Tobler, Braidwoods etc. the Gawra XIA cultural complex belonged to the newcomers in northern Mesopotamia and the Amuq valley (Braidwood & Braidwood, 1960: 513; Tobler, 1950: 24-26). 2 Later became a popular concept according to which the formation of ‘Uruk civilization’ is seen as a result of a gradual transition from domestically produced on a slow wheel painted pottery to a mass- produced by craftsmen on a fast wheel unpainted pottery. But data of Transcaucasian archaeological material, in my opinion, contradict to the point of view of pure technological explanation of the derivation of Uruk pottery and its subsequent distribution from Mesopotamia to the Caucasus. If Uruk colonies, as a rule, are distinguishable from the indigenous settlements around them by a complex of material culture: pottery and other artifacts, architecture and graves, we have in the Caucasus quite different situation. More and more sites belonging to the culture of Leilatepe are detected every year in southern Transcaucasia (see Almamedov 2012) and therefore to speak only about of some outposts of Uruk colonists becomes quite irrelevant. As it has been expected, some archaeologists already began to speak about the penetration of large masses of people of a quite new migrants for this region – bearers of Mesopotamian, Uruk tradition in the middle of the 4th millennium, who settled down in every region of the Caucasus, in the mountains and flatlands, fundamentally changing the character of area and directing the economic and social development of the host society along a radically new and progressive path. In Transcaucasia, they have allegedly developed culture of Leilatepe tradition. Afterwards they penetrated the North Caucasus, as well in large masses and rather intensively, and took participation in the creation of the northern Caucasian Maikop cultural tradition, covering the entire territory of the Caucasus. They consider that Uruk migrants had learned in the north how to build this type of burial mounds and brought the acquired tradition back to the South Caucasus (Akhundov 2010; cf. Pitskhelauri 2012: 154-157). Rather complicated picture, isn’t it? This problem emerged in the consequence of study of the recently excavated kurgans at Soyuq Bulaq in western Azerbaijan which are dating to the beginning of the 4th millennium. Similar kurgans have been excavated in Kavtiskhevi village in central Georgia. It seems that this [p. 194] type of burial construction in Transcaucasia started nearly 1500 year earlier than traditionally was accepted. These kurgans belong to the so-called Leylatepe culture which is considered as connected with the Uruk tradition. Archaeologists came to conclusion that the practice of kurgan burial had been already well established in the southern Caucasus during the Late Chalcolithic, the pottery from burials shows affiliation with Late Chalcolithic 2-3 pottery from northern Mesopotamia (Lyonnet, Akhundov, Almamedov et al., 2008: 27-44; Museyibli, 2008: 22). In their opinion, the Leylatepe culture tribes afterwards migrated to the north in the mid-fourth millennium and played an important part in the rise of the Maikop culture of the northern Caucasus (Museyibli, 2008: 22). However, this very complex and controversial issue – the origin and spread of burials with the kurgan tradition – requires a full and comprehensive study of archaeological data of the vast areas of the Eurasian steppes, – where they are so typical and even dictated by the environment that it is difficult to imagine how they could have their origin in any other place, – and a much broader scope of research integrity as well than we have at our disposal today. New generation of archaeologists unlike their predecessors, does not consider anymore the bearers of Ubaid culture as the founders of so-called Leilatepe culture, but to the Mesopotamian Uruk or Ubaid-Uruk tradition distributed to Transcaucasia. In their opinion, the fact that the founders of 3 culture Leilatepe were migrants from Mesopotamia now is without a doubt, but problem is a more precise definition of the time of this migration (Almamedov 2008: 21-22). The above-mentioned concept – “Ubaid-Uruk” of course means the time of Ubaid/Uruk transition, the cultural period in northern Mesopotamia during which S. Lloyd has seen the crucial indicator of new era, unprecedented increase of metal objects (Lloyd 1978: 75). Recently, C. Marro, who had connected chaff-faced wares collected in the eastern Lake Van district with Caucasian Chalcolithic pottery and had related these to similar Amuq E/F wares found south of the Taurus mountains in northern Mesopotamia, interpreted these resemblances as a sign of an intrusion of north Mesopotamian immigrants into the Caucasus prior to the well-known Uruk “expansion” to the north along the Upper Euphrates (Marro, 2000; see Kohl, 2007a: 167). B. Lyonnet places the Caucasus within the ‘pre-Uruk expansion’ phenomenon, the nature of which, in her words, is still to be understood (Lyonnet 2010: 358) and which now needs to be transported earlier (beginning of the Uruk period) and farther north (the Caucasus). The ‘center and periphery’ explanation seems her far too simple solution, as influences were reciprocal and more indicating on the ‘equal’ relations between the two areas, borrowing something from each other (Lyonnet 2007; Lyonnet 2010: 359). The name of this period – pre-Uruk was quite logically created to distinguish it from the Late Uruk expansion towards the Upper Euphrates area, because the latter, as recently has become clear, [p. 195] can’t be used to explain Mesopotamian-Caucasian connections even from pure chronological reasons. This is quite obvious – Late Uruk expansion is in reality much later phenomenon than above-mentioned Mesopotamian ties of Caucasian archaeological material. But such a dichotomy – Late Uruk vs. pre-Uruk – seems worth-less, there is no real need to invent new terms to overcome a chronological discrepancy. If earlier it was thought, that the wave of migrants from Mesopotamia to the Caucasus belonged to the representatives of Ubaid culture and this view was generally accepted. In the 80’s of the last century was believed that so-called Leilatepe culture emerged as a result of the migration of the bearers of the Ubaid culture from Mesopotamia to Transcaucasia (cf. Narimanov 1991: 32.). Though, nowadays, this wave is determined as belonging to a later, Uruk period, when the Mesopotamian culture spread wider in the western and north-eastern direction. The term – “Ubaid expansion” was replaced by the concept – “Uruk expansion”, to denote, one and the same phenomenon – Mesopotamian ties of Caucasian cultures. At the same time, whole range of southern Transcaucasian sites, among them quite recently excavated, reveal signs of Ubaid culture.

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